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Zero-rating refers to a plan or plan option that allows end users of the Internet to use the data they consume to access content of a specific content provider free of charge, that is, free of charge for data transmission. Zero-rating has pro-competitive effects such as increasing internet access and contents use, and increasing platform sales and consumer welfare through price discrimination. But it also has anti-competitive effects such as distorting consumers\' contents selection, hindering fair competition of contents market, entry detering of new ISPs, and CAPs, price abuse and so on. Therefore it is necessary to carefully observe and analyze the effects of ZR on relevant market competition. This paper examines the previous papers that analyzed the effects of zero-rating on competition, and try to find the conditions that ZR must meet in order not to impede fair competition in relevant markets. In particular, unlike previous studies, this paper focuses on exploitative or exclusionary abuse such as price abuse, exclusion of competitors, and market foreclosure of zero-rating.

Sangkyu Rhee
(Professor, Dept. of Economics, Chung-Ang University)

[Korean journal of industrial organization, Vol. 29, 2021]